Welcome to this blog which it is hoped will contribute to the development of evidence based educational leadership and management

Sunday, 30 October 2016

High staff turnover - it's not always a sign of a dysfunctional SLT

Recently I was involved in the back end of Twitter discussion with - @mmm684@JarlathOBrien@AlisonMPeacockabout the causes of staff turnover, and whether high staff turnover was a sign of a potentially dysfunctional SLT. Given the limitations of Twitter, I thought it was best if I tried to expand my thinking about staff turnover, as staff turnover may have positives and negative causes. As such, I thought it might be useful to develop this 2x2 matrix to think about the level and causes of staff turnover.

Staff
turnover

Low

High

Reason

Positive

Q1

Q2

Negative

Q3

Q4

In Q1, a school may have low staff turnover due to the supportive and developmental opportunities within the school. The school may be growing so opportunities for advancement are naturally provided. In Q2 you may have high levels of staff turnover which are the product of development opportunities being provided to colleagues, which places them in a good position to take advantage of external advancement. In Q3 you have a low level of staff turnover, which may be a product of a complacent senior leadership which does not provide staff with sufficient appropriate challenge, particularly around the area of performance. In Q4 you may have high levels of staff turnover which is the produce of a toxic school culture which has been bred by the senior leadership team,

Given that I'm an advocate of evidence-based school leadership and management, it seemed sensible to think of a range of questions about staff turnover that a school could ask of itself in order to take an evidence-based approach. As such, I have adapted the work Briner and Rousseau (2011) to look at the questions that could be asked, and which uses four sources of evidence - research, school data, stakeholder views, and practitioner expertise.

Research data

What are
the average rates of teaching staff turnover in my type of school – primary,
secondary, post-16?

What are
the average rates of teaching staff turnover in other local schools?

What does
the research evidence suggest as the most likely causes of staff turnover?

Are there
any systematic reviews on teaching staff turnover and the most effective
interventions to reduce it?

What
evidence is there that those interventions might work in my school?

Are there
any new analyses which might provide an alternative ‘take’ on teaching staff
turnover?

School evidence

What
actually is the teaching staff turnover rate?

What type
of staff are leaving, NQTS, mid-career or experienced?

Are staff
leaving from any particular department or stage?

Is there
anything going on locally in other schools which might be impacting upon staff
turnover?

Do staff
surveys give an indication as to what might be happening?

What would
it cost the school to undertake any form of intervention?

Stakeholder evidence

What do
other members of the senior leadership team think is happening?

What do
teaching staff think is happening?

What do
colleagues think about any proposed changes of practice?

Are there
any ‘outlier’ views, which might provide a particular insight or different
perspective

What
alternative explanations and proposed solutions do others have?

My own experience

Have I seen
this before in other schools that I have worked in?

What
happened?

What is my
theory of action about staff turnover?

What’s
worked in the past in other schools that I have worked in, and why?

What does
my ‘gut’ or ‘intuition’ say what is happening, and why?

How
relevant and applicable is my experience?

Some final words

It's only by asking such a range of questions that it is possible to come up with an evidence-based approach to the particular issue of staff turnover within your school. And remember, one of the first tasks of the conscientious, explicit and judicious evidence-based practitioner is to challenge your own thinking, and you do this by trying to find evidence which is contrary to what you currently believe is case.

Evidence Based Practice : A handbook for teachers and school leaders

About the author

Dr Gary Jones, @DrGaryJones, worked in post-compulsory education for over 25 years. Gary has a doctorate in educational management from the University of Bristol and is interested in evidence-based practice and the implications for school leadership and management. Gary is a Fellow of the Center for Evidence-Based Management and associate of the Expansive Education Network based at the University of Winchester, where he supports teachers engage in evidence-based practice. Gary is also involved in a research project investigating school research leads use of research evidence. Over the last last two years Gary has spoken at a range of conferences including ResearchED Sydney, Cambridge, New York, Glasgow and Goteborg. Gary has also spoken at conferences organised by UKFEchat, the Canons Park Teaching School Alliance and the Expansive Education Network.